Hi, Ocean -- Hope you are doing well!! :blowkiss:
I mostly agree with your post, though I have a few questions/comments in no particular order.
First, I haven't read the specific statutes on the different levels of manslaughter/homicide in MI -- does anyone have a link handy? I'm most familiar with FL laws and I can't see how Renisha's death would fit into our current statutes. Though, juries tend to do weird things in my state.
That 92% statistic you gave is the first time I ever heard this -- can you give a link?
IMO, I don't know whether or not Wafer had malice and I'm leaning towards not. The big red flag for me is that he opened his front door, because if he was so in fear for his life, why would he open the door?? Even if he was just brandishing his gun as a threat and Renisha was shot accidentally through a user-error in using his new gun, he needs to be punished and, IMO, harshly. Owning a gun is a huge responsibility that far too many gun-owners don't seem to understand.
MOO, IMO and all that.
Good Morning Ms. Daisy! I cant answer why Wafer or others have opened their door to a perceived threat. All I know he isn't the only one that has ever done it before and legally he broke no law by opening the door of his own home.
What I found interesting about the self defense laws in MI is that it now includes porch areas. Some seem to think that the homeowner must be attacked before they can defend themselves when in truth the purpose of self defense laws is to prevent an attack from happening in the first place. Laws such as this go by what the self defending person perceived at the time all of it was happening. Mens Rea, I think its called or something similar.
The MI Supreme Court changed the law in 2011 to include all porch areas which are now considered a part of the home. The homeowner has no duty to retreat. There was a time before the laws changed that it was always said if someone has to shoot someone they think is breaking into their home they need to make sure if they shoot them outside of the home to pull the body over the threshold and make sure they are inside the living area of the home. That no longer is the law or requirement.
http://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Curtilage-2.png Here is the law as it is now after being changed in 2011.
I quickly looked for a link since I have known this for decades and had no reason to read it again but some of this information came from a DOJ study Bill Clinton had done while he was in office and researchers have continued to update. In fact I do think I remember reading something a few years back that the 8% who fire their weapon has actually dropped even lower. I will try to look for current info when I have time. I am very busy with my RL today so it may be late this evening before I can research it again.
Gun Control Fact-Sheet 2004
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every yearor about 6,850 times a day.(1) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.(2)
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.(3)
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.(22)
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.(23)
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606)(25). And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The error rate for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."(26)
http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?176432-Gun-Control-Fact-Sheet
